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Democratic National Convention

Bernie Sanders dominates Snapchat, House Democrats just discovered Periscope and your grandma is starting to share her vacation on Facebook Live. Social media isn’t “mediating” life anymore; it is the primary mode of communication for Americans across class, race, gender and age. So when there is a Twitter analysis of the Republican and Democratic conventions, pundits, predictors and the press should all stand up and take notice.

The Qorvis MSLGroup, a public affairs firm in Washington, D.C., did some of the dusty old grunt work that used to be the meat and potatoes of old-school media outlets. It tracked down delegates from the Republican and Democratic conventions (more than 2,800), found the ones who actually had Twitter accounts and basically put its ears to the ground to listen to what delegates talked about over the last two weeks. What the firm found shows that the “unity” both parties try to put on display onstage and for television is not really happening across Twitter—the results of which could spell chaos or doom for both Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump this fall.

Below are two tables collecting some of the main data and tweets from delegates at both conventions. They break down volume amount and most popular hashtags, as well as which delegations were spending more time tweeting than actually listening to who was onstage.

The tweet breakdown from the Republican National Convention shows how the Ted Cruz and #NeverTrump movements maintain a structural hold on the Republican Party even if they are in the numeric minority.

How does that play out? The tweet tables show that two of the loudest and most active delegations during the RNC were from Kansas and Arizona. Ted Cruz won the Kansas caucus outright, snagging 13 delegates to Trump’s six. In Arizona, Trump crushed Cruz in a winner-take-all contest. However, thanks to some quick thinking on Cruz’s behalf, and the Trump campaign’s absolute inability to read the instructions, more pro-Cruz delegates were elected at the state party conference in Arizona than pro-Trump delegates.

The Twitter imprint of Ted Cruz was greater than his actual popularity in the party, but his supporters nevertheless drove coverage and content analysis of the convention. Think of it like an artist who has a huge Twitter following but hasn’t dropped a meaningful album in years.

“Vote your conscience,” Ted Cruz’s mic-drop moment during the GOP convention, was bound to be huge, but the fact that it was the biggest Twitter moment of the week among delegates guaranteed that it was covered as a turning point instead of a blip. It is also telling that although Trump spent seemingly every waking moment on Twitter, it was Cruz’s Twitter-following delegates who were pumping out the most tweets.

On the Democratic side, Twitter delegates were a bit more active and also more targeted in their comments and goals.

Roughly the same number of RNC and DNC delegates were on Twitter, but Democrats tweeted more: a lot more. If tweets were a measure of enthusiasm, the gap was quite huge, and it favors Democrats heading into the fall election.

Looking into this overall collection of tweets also spells out an interesting split, though, which the Democrats may still have to contend with this fall. Because the Democratic primary is more proportional than the GOP’s winner-take-all method, there were more Sanders delegates actively tweeting among delegates than there were, say, Cruz or Rubio supporters at the RNC. Which is why, on the first night of the convention, something like this could happen:

That was just one of many attempted revolts by pro-Sanders delegates to actually nominate former Ohio state Sen. (and big Bernie supporter) Nina Turner as Hillary Clinton’s vice presidential nominee.

Now, this was doomed to failure, but it shows a level of organization and tension in the party that is more evident through social media than just polling. While pro-Cruz and #NeverTrump people may actually stay home, that simply takes them off the table. #FeelTheBern types seem to want to stay engaged in the process; they just don’t want Hillary Clinton.

This has the potential to be a Ralph Nader situation whereby disaffected Sanders supporters stay engaged in the election this fall, but vote for Green Party nominee Jill Stein or throw out a slew of write-in candidates. When a prominent voice like Turner’s is still in the mix and refusing to endorse Clinton, this Twitter analysis at least suggests that online party unity for the Democrats may still be elusive.

To be fair, this is an analysis of a small segment of voters who are actually dedicated enough to take the time off work and pay their way to two conventions and suffer through unbearable heat in two cities. In other words, you have to be cautious about the generalizability and predictive power of these tweets. However, in a race where both errant and positive tweets become turning points in the campaign almost weekly, it would be equally naive to ignore these results.

While this research has only gone as far as the conventions, delegates are your hard-core party volunteers and influencers in campaigns back home. There is a good chance that if these delegate tweets are followed over the next 100 days, they will mirror or possibly predict what will finally happen on Election Day.

On MSNBC, political science professor Dr. Jason Johnson discussed the impact of social media on the Republican and Democratic National Conventions. Specifically, Johnson cited research from Qorvis MSLGROUP Delegate Tracker that revealed former Ohio state Senator Nina Turner to be among the most talked about politicians among Democratic convention delegates on Twitter.

Qualified people get passed over for jobs all the time. Having the best résumé, doing the perfect interview and even providing the most stellar references (“Applicant saved me from a burning building once and makes a damn good cup of coffee; hire him!”) does not always guarantee that you’ll get the job. More often than not it’s about whether people at the new job like you and if they can envision you every day in the building, in the elevator with your security badge, surprising Gail in accounting with some Au Bon Pain or even just sitting behind your desk every day tapping away at the keyboard. Envisioning you in the job is 90 percent of getting the job.

Last night, Hillary Clinton put that image in America’s collective heads. She looked like a president, she acted like a president and she shattered more glass than Shaq on a 1990s backboard. Which was important, because this is going to be one of the closest races in her political career.

Compared with almost every other night at the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia, Thursday was an odd one. First, the lines were even longer than usual. Record numbers of people wanted to get into the building to see Clinton speak, and they were lining up early and enthusiastically. Oddly enough, the security itself was not as strict.

You got the impression that after a week of managing long lines and confused Uber drivers, the gate-security people were just there so they wouldn’t get fined. What was once a long inspection process to authenticate my security badge became a cursory glance. I could’ve had a bunch of Kroger Plus bonus cards around my neck on a lanyard and I think I could’ve gotten in along with the rest of the crowd. The buzz in the crowd wasn’t so much about Clinton—I actually heard more people curious to see how Chelsea Clinton would do, given her general disinterest in campaigning. Chelsea did not disappoint.

She came to the stage with all the passion and comfort of a 17-year-old asked by her parents at the family reunion to recite that one poem that won her the school oratory contest … when she was 9. Chelsea has been doing this since she was around 14 years old. She seemed, not quite uncomfortable onstage, but really almost unmoved by the process. She talked about Hillary doing Facetime with her granddaughter and how her mom was such a great person.

It was not an attempt to “humanize” Hillary—a very overused phrase at this point; it was because that’s all that Chelsea wanted to talk about. It’s almost as if she was saying, “You all know my mother is qualified, so I’m really just going to say I love her and call it a day.” She did, and that was all. Then, in a move that was rare for either convention, Hillary Clinton started almost exactly on time and launched into a very different kind of speech.

This was not “the most important speech of Hillary Clinton’s life,” despite what other pundits will tell you. Could this speech compare to what she had to do in 1996, when she was expected to defend her husband, Bill Clinton, personally and professionally? Or in 2000, when she had the same job but also had to convince America that Al Gore was an actual human and not a cyborg from Skynet dead set on ruling the nation through numbers, fear and boredom? Or how about 2008, when she had to swallow her pride and speak on behalf of Barack Obama after that primary where she was supposed to be the “inevitable candidate”?

The only thing I could imagine would be harder is if Steph Curry was asked to hand the trophy to LeBron James and then say a few words on King James’ behalf. The point being, Hillary Clinton has had tougher speeches than what she had to do last night.

The speech itself was impressive because it was likely the most natural speech that Clinton ever gave in her campaign career. She talked about the work she’s done for the country, why she loves America and how she will fight for everyone. She didn’t just give lip service to Bernie Sanders supporters; she pointed out that the Democratic Party platform is an ode to their hard work, and thus they have a victory of sorts that she is beholden to.

Some of my colleagues said that she spent too much time talking Donald Trump and not enough time touting her own résumé. I disagree. Clinton is that qualified employee. She, everyone else in the room and every Republican in America knows that the former first lady is “qualified” for the job. So what she did last night was show us what it would look like when she was in the White House, and then show us, in unvarnished terms, what it would be like for Trump to be in the White House.

Do you want Donald Trump riding up the elevator with you every day? Do you want to run into Donald Trump in the break room? Doesn’t Donald Trump seem like the kind of guy who brings doughnuts for the whole office and then, an hour later, sends out an email saying everyone owes him $5 for the doughnuts he generously provided?

Hillary Clinton will get a postconvention bounce, and the race for president will be tight for the next 100 days as the Republican and Democratic parties find ways to bring out their bases and convince voters that their candidate is the best way for America to move forward. Clinton didn’t change that dynamic in a significant way last night, but she did give us an image to work with. She looks presidential now, and as long as more Americans can see that image in their minds than can see it for Trump, she’s got a chance of making that image reality.

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About Jason Johnson

Dr. Jason Johnson is a professor, political analyst and public speaker. Fresh, unflappable, objective, he is known for his ability to break down stories with wit and candor. Johnson is the author the book Political Consultants and Campaigns: One Day to Sell, a tenured professor in the School of Global Journalism & Communication at Morgan State University in Baltimore, Maryland and Politics Editor at TheRoot.com. Dr. Johnson has an extensive public speaking and media background ranging from … [Read More...] about About Jason Johnson